


every word you say

by mido



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Fictober 2018, M/M, tags to be added as prompts are written
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-23 11:37:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16158212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mido/pseuds/mido
Summary: it sounds like sweet talk to my earsfictober 2018 fills yugioh editiondaily prompts are chapter titles





	1. sharing a bed

It was more than likely that Ryoken’s mansion housed a guest bedroom, and equally likely that there was more than one. There was only so many uses for as many rooms as as you could ask for, in Yusaku’s opinion-- that assumption is why he had guessed he’d be sleeping in the room a door down from Ryoken’s or something like that.

However, when he mentions sleeping in a separate bed, Ryoken raises an eyebrow at him. “Have you never shared a bed before?” He asks jokingly, even though it’s kind of obvious that he hasn’t. Yusaku just wasn’t that kind of person; his slight blush only confirms what Ryoken already knew. “What does it matter?” The other mutters, crossing his arms and turning his face to the side. Ryoken takes that chance to take a step forward, lean in and plant a kiss on Yusaku’s cheek, warm beneath his lips.

“Because we’re in a relationship.” Ryoken answers flippantly. “So shouldn’t we take initiative and do these kinds of things?” 

Yusaku purses his lips at that, fixing Ryoken with a glare. Take initiative? Both of them knew full well Yusaku did just fine with taking initiative! How else did he become Playmaker in the first place?! “Sure.” He says curtly, and walks past Ryoken in the direction of the latter’s room. Said male grins and shakes his head before following suit.

When Yusaku opens the door he expects a made bed and vacuumed floors, a closed closet door and just an overall trim room. However, what he’s greeted with is articles of clothing strewn across the floor, a bed with the covers untucked, and the closet wide open, showcasing Ryoken’s wardrobe. “Sorry.” Says the man in question, walking past Yusaku to pick up a couple garments and tuck them into a chest of drawers. “I didn’t get a chance to clean up before you came over.” He mentions this without a hint of sheepishness. 

Yusaku makes a face, but he walks in and helps Ryoken tidy up a bit anyway. There’s not a crazy amount of cleaning to be done; plus, they were about to head to bed anyway. “Do you need a change of clothes?” Ryoken asks, tugging his shirt off over his head and giving Yusaku an eyeful of his abs and chiseled pecs. He snaps a mental picture, then quickly turns his face away before Ryoken can see his cheeks burning. “A pair of sweatpants would be nice.” He mumbles, poking at his own flat yet undefined stomach through his t-shirt.

The pants get tossed to him within ten seconds, and Yusaku shyly moves to unbutton and peel off his jeans, keeping his back to Ryoken. The other is unbothered by changing in front of someone, however, pulling on a pair of grey sweats and then sneaking up behind Yusaku and wrapping his arms around his waist while the other is still in his underwear. Yusaku jumps, then sighs; “Get off me.” He protests halfheartedly as he attempts to put on his change of pants. Ryoken smirks and leans closer, taking advantage of their proximity to whisper in Yusaku’s ear. “You can leave those off, if you want.” 

The other instantaneously turns beet red and squirms out of Ryoken’s loose hold easily. “Dirty minded…” He mutters to himself, finally putting on the garment so much fuss has been made over, then flouncing down on the bed. Ryoken laughs aloud and joins him, wordlessly letting Yusaku instinctively snuggle up to his side.He yawns, then smooches the other’s forehead and wraps an arm around Yusaku snugly. “Night.” He whispers, once they both stop worming around and get into comfortable positions. “...Night.” Yusaku repeats quietly, closing his eyes and unconsciously inhaling Ryoken’s scent, the warmth of his bare chest permeating into his side. No one can reach them here, hidden away on Stardust Road and finding solace in each other’s body heat. 

It is with those thoughts and the sound of his own rhythmic breathing that Yusaku falls prey to slumber.


	2. "people like you have no imagination."

“It’s very simple, you see.” Windy pokes his body out of the duel disk, placing a hand on his hip and extending the other. “You convince Playmaker and Soulburner to back off, or help us if you’re feeling useful, we convince Ai to join us, and we pit Playmaker and his comrades against the Hanoi again.” The Ignis looks up at Jin and makes a face like duh, if that’s even possible. “Easy peasy.”

Jin stares down at the green form that’s taken to the old duel disk his parents had bought him, back in the day when he still enjoyed Duel Monsters. “I don’t want to deceive Yus-- Playmaker.” He mumbles, turning his face away. Windy sighs exaggeratedly, and does something Jin hadn’t known he could-- he jumps clean out of the duel disk screen and floats up to be eye-level with Jin. “Come on, Jin.” He goads. “Don’t you want your brother to stay alive when us Ignises fulfill our purpose?” 

Jin bites his lip, and shifts his gaze to some random spot in his hospital room. “I don’t understand.” He murmurs, and Windy clears his throat then moves himself so his eyes are locked with Jin’s again. “Then I’ll explain one more time.” He floats back down to the duel disk, tapping away on the screen until a video that Jin recognizes as one from the Lost Incident pops up; he pinches his arm to keep his composure.

Onscreen is Yusaku, or at least, a Yusaku de-aged to six years old. An electric shock resounds in the film, and Yusaku’s scream echoes in the tiny cell. Jin looks away, unable to keep watching. 

“This is how Ai was made.” Windy says flippantly, completely unbothered by Yusaku’s suffering. “Through Playmaker’s pain and distress, Ai was taught sentience.” He swipes across the screen, to where a picture of Dr. Kiyoshi Kogami pops up. “Dr. Kogami intended for us to be humanity’s successors-- the ones that would continue on humanity’s legacy. Us Ignis, not bound by flesh.” He swipes again, to a looping video of Cyberse World from when it was still in existence. “We built Cyberse World within the network, hidden away from humans.” Swipes again, to a looping video of Cyberse burning to the ground. “But humans still felt threatened by us, and tracked us down to try and kill us.” Jin digs his teeth into his lip.

“So we decided that if humans see us as the enemy, we’d see them as ours too.” Windy explains, coming to land on the duel disk again and spreading his arms wide. “To become humanity’s successors like Dr. Kogami intended for us to, though, we need Playmaker and Soulburner out of the picture.” The Ignis points up at Jin. “That’s where you come in.”

Jin tastes blood in his mouth and releases his lip from his canines. “Won’t that mean,” he begins, voice small, “you kill me, too?” 

Windy crosses his arms, looking seemingly deep in thought. “It’s likely.” He admits, and Jin squeezes his eyes shut to keep any tears from leaking out. “But you’re a special case. You’re Lightning’s partner-- he’ll probably want to keep you around.” The other opens his eyes again, slowly. “What about Shoichi?” He asks quietly.

The green Ignis sighs, shrugging. “Don’t know.” He says, tone completely flat. “If you can get him onto our side, he wouldn’t be totally useless, since he knows our algorithm.” 

Jin looks at Windy then, his face contorted between terror and resolve. “...” He says nothing, and stares down at his hands. They’re soft and weak, like a child’s, not the hands of someone partnered with the Light Ignis, the leader of the Ignises. They’re not Playmaker’s or Shoichi’s hands-- they aren’t the hands of someone who could do anything on their own. 

“Okay.” He whispers, almost inaudible. Windy’s eyes crinkle at the corners, as if he’s smiling without a mouth. “Good.” The Ignis says with a grin in his voice. “Then let’s go.” 

Those hands-- if they weren’t the hands of someone strong like Yusaku or his brother--

then he’d callous them himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can pry windy and jin interacting from my cold dead hands


	3. morning

Spectre is usually the first up, efficiently fulfilling his morning routine as soon as he’s awake and brewing a pot of coffee for the ever-tired Yusaku and the complete opposite of a morning person, Ryoken. It’s not difficult for him to sleep on a schedule-- in fact, he usually wakes up without an alarm at all, despite Yusaku and Ryoken’s secret belief that he just silences it before it can rouse either of them. Spectre thinks that a bit ludacris, as he doubts that _anyone_ could ignore the sound that wakes those two up for longer than a half-second. Regardless, he lets them believe it and hides his grin behind a mug of coffee, still tossing tendrils of steam into the air to cup his cheeks with pungent warmth.

Yusaku takes about a half-hour to drag himself out of bed with Ryoken on his heels, which often leaves Spectre with almost forty-five minutes to himself in the posh kitchen of Ryoken’s mansion. Most of the time he just sips at his drink of choice and skims through news articles for any mention of the Hanoi, or Playmaker, or sometimes if he’s bored, Blue Angel (the last one returning much more fan pages than the first two). He hasn’t seen many actual appearances of her in Link Vrains lately, though, so his searches have died down significantly in terms of recent results.

More often than not, once he gets bored of searching news outlets for anything half-interesting, he heads into Link Vrains himself, usually on the very sofa that Yusaku, him and Ryoken spend their evenings watching TV on until they start to drift (at which point they drag themselves to bed before passing out on said couch). Not a huge number of people are online around five AM (mostly just NEETs who don’t have places to be when the day gets a move on or kids that woke up too early to have time to play before school began), but Spectre enjoys the atmosphere early in the morning when he comes online. He has an alternate skin, of course, so that nobody bothers getting the idea that a Knight of Hanoi is lurking around at these hours. 

When he does enter Link Vrains at this time, he has a ritual. There’s no foliage nor forests in SOL Technologies’s virtual world, so he can’t enjoy nature simply-- instead, he’s coded in a backdoor to a small space he can call his own, one linked to the Hanoi hideout just for added secrecy and security. Vyra, Genome and Faust would never bother trying to get in; Spectre’d added an algorithm to the password as a riddle, one that only he would ever know the answer to. It wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ the other Knights, just. He didn’t _like_ the idea of them in his own personal space. 

In this world (if you can call a place the size of a small apartment its own world), Spectre has coded in trees, shrubbery, grass and foliage as far as the eye can see, though you could only explore a portion of it before coming in contact with the end of his program. No animals gnaw on the bark of the treetrunks, though, and no butterflies nor bugs populate the air-- Spectre hadn’t seen a need for them in this little space of his.

Here, he sits at the base of the largest tree and leans back against the trunk, and when the ‘sun’ sets he is a child again, sleeping on the roots of his Mother. He is living the tender age of six years old again, only bothering to cease his resting when Ryoken extends a hand to him. Even then, his eyes still droop with the ends of slumber.

Every time, however, he is awoken by nothing. And when Yusaku drags himself out of bed moments before Ryoken, Spectre is leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping his coffee. And if he looks like his namesake, like the haunted himself, Yusaku says nothing. The expression is gone within half-seconds.


	4. reincarnation

The peasant brought before the prince on that day was small, short and lanky with skin stretched tight over his ribs and bony seamstress fingers. He had been sentenced to life in prison by the chief guard for his crime (stealing three pears from a fruit stall in the marketplace), but no decisions were made without Prince Vector’s approval, so here they were. The prisoner-to-be shivers from the frigid temperature of the shackles encircling his wrists, but his expression does not waver from that of determination.

Prince Vector only takes notice of the guards and the thief between them once they stand before his throne on the purple carpet reaching from where they stand to the door. The guards kneel in one fluid motion, tugging the peasant down with them when he continues to stand straight-up after they do so, and forcing him to bow his head in respect. “A thief has been detained, Your Majesty.” The chief says, peeking up at the prince out of politeness. “We had sentenced him to life in prison, but the final decision is yours, Your Majesty.” 

Vector yawns inwardly. Another day, another petty crime, he supposes-- he may as well behead this one to set an example.

He’s about to give the order to publicly execute the prisoner within the next two days, then, when the thief finally breaks free of the hold one of the guards has on his head, having forced him to keep it bowed. He doesn’t scream for mercy, though, nor curse his lovely prince. Instead, he raises his head and stares directly into Vector’s eyes.

Now, it was common knowledge that it was rude to meet the prince’s gaze with your own, and after the death of his parents Vector had become thirstier for blood, using every excuse to go to war or have someone executed. Most everyone avoided that because of said reasons-- most people valued their lives-- but this thief did not seem to be familiar with royal courtesy. His eyes, a murky pink like soot-stained ruby, pierced into Vector’s own gleaming amethyst with an anger and a determination like no other; frankly, it caught the prince off guard for a moment.

“Release him.” Vector whispers without even realizing it, still captivated by this gutsy prisoner’s gaze. The chief guard nods, then pauses and does a double take. “Sire?” He asks, like he didn’t hear correctly the first time.

“I said to release him, you fool!” Vector’s voice jumps pitch to a scream, and he jabs a finger at the chief guard. “ _You_ are to be executed tomorrow morning.” 

The chief’s mouth drops open, but before he has a chance to react the royal guards grab him, dragging him kicking and shouting to the dungeon below the castle floors. The city guards stare at each other in fearstruck awe, but move to stand and escort the prisoner away, whose expression has shifted to one of suspicion. “Wait.” Vector stops them, and they jerk to stop moving out of fear their lives may be next. “The thief is to stay here.” He commands matter-of-factly.

The guards blink in confusion, then bow out of respect and hurry out the castle doors back to their domain, the city outside. With only the prince’s advisor and two royal guards in the room other than the prince himself and the newly freed thief, it’d be the perfect time to attempt assassination, but no one moves as Vector stands from where he’s perched on his throne and walks regally to where the former prisoner now stands, dusting himself off. He’s shorter than Vector, a real runt, but Vector finds himself charmed. His hair is black and sticking out at the sides like overgrown tree branches, while wild pink bangs hang over his eyes. Vector reaches out and places his hand under his chin, tilting his head up to look him in the eyes once more. “Your name.” He finds himself asking.

The thief glares, but does not move. “Yuma.” He mumbles, then once more with spirit, “Yuma.”

Vector smiles then, the kind of smile a snake smiles at its prey before it swallows it whole. “Vector.” He says smugly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Yuma.” 

 

A gust of cold air through the open window in his room is enough to nudge Vector awake, cracking his eyes open groggily to the dark ceiling above. He’s still in his jeans and t-shirt, but his leather jacket hangs on his bedpost by the headboard. He grabs at the red jewel looped around his neck, and clutches it until his breathing evens out. Yes, everyone had remembered their past lives in bits and pieces after Don Thousand was defeated, but Vector had only ever remembered the things he’d known as pre-Thousand, not post. There had been nothing he’d recalled that had been done while he was under the Barian’s influence.

He looks out the window. That muted pink, a twist between maroon and cotton candy, was still so familiar, even now--

 _Oh,_ Vector thinks. _Oh._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god i am so far behind lol but i'm trying

**Author's Note:**

> i have a [ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/seibyl)


End file.
